Single Issue Climate Parties and ICAN

Senate Candidate visits Bairnsdale

I wish to offer my
congratulations to the outstanding election campaign run by Independents for
Climate Action Now (ICAN) of which I am a member and supporter. In their brief
life so far – only as old as the formal election campaign itself – ICAN has
managed to stage a quite credible election campaign. In the short time
available they have put up excellent Senate candidates in three states – all
highly qualified and local – and in each managed to run prominent, if unco-ordinated
campaigns. Their presence on social media has been boosted by having Anglican
priest Fr. Rod Bower as lead NSW candidate. Rod is an accomplished and
outspoken twitter user with a large following. The other candidates quickly
adapted to using twitter though I am not sure how they fared on facebook. It
remains to be seen whether this translates into primary votes.

Comparing ICAN with
previous ‘climate’ party efforts this seems to be, hopefully, third time lucky.
ICAN’s organisation and efforts appear to be much more closely aligned with the
Climate Change Coalition (CCC) of 2007 than that of the Renewable Energy Party
(REP)* of 2016. The CCC were swamped in the Ruddslide and although they had
excellent candidates with a polarised election they found it difficult to get
any publicity in the mainstream media. Whilst ICAN’s situation is similar the
burgeoning social media has helped them immensely. As well they have gained TV
slots by both science and stunt, in all of the eastern states except Tassie.
The REP’s campaign was, aside from a few online articles, ignored and they had
little traction in the media. Possibly working to ICAN’s advantage has been the
promotion of the election by NGOs as the ‘climate election’ – notably by the
Australian Conservation Foundation.

As I noted last week
the chances of ICAN getting a candidate up are very small indeed and even
getting funding and deposits returned (4% of primary votes) may be hard to achieve.
But the next steps for ICAN may be the most difficult of all especially if their
electoral performance is below expectations. Both the CCC and the REP failed to
survive their one election disappointments. So the need is for ICAN to now step
up, whatever the election results, and to build, organise and capitalise on
their energetic, welcome and necessary introduction to our electoral politics.

*by the time I attempted to join the
CCC in 2008 it was already defunct, a demise brought on by conflict over previous
bizarre preference deals. I was a member, candidate and eventually secretary of
the REP before it was deregistered in 2018.